Librarians Huddle after Colorado
Governor Guts State Aid
Librarians in Colorado are scrambling in anticipation of the state-funded support and cooperative programming that will be scrapped July 1 when the library community loses $4.6 million in library aid that Gov. Bill Owens has eliminated by line-item veto. The cuts were part of some $228 million that Owens slashed from the FY 2003 budget May 31, targeting programs for at-risk youth, education, health care, the arts, and subsidized housing. “Imagine one of our constituents who, faced with a 13% drop in his income, decided to increase spending while ignoring the loss in revenues,” Owens explained in the June 1 Denver Post.
Funding for two programs begun some 30 years ago have been eliminated: the Denver Public Library–based Colorado Resource Center, whose $2.2-million budget included free reference service by phone, fax, and e-mail to any state resident and subsidized interlibrary loan from DPL; and the $170,000-per-year Payment for Lending initiative, which supported ILL from smaller community libraries. Also slashed was a $2-million state-grant program, which had given libraries a minimum of $3,000 per year for collection development. Since its implementation in 2000, the state grants added 200,000 items to collections statewide.
“These cuts are a setback to all Colorado libraries and the people they serve,” Colorado Association of Libraries President Donna Morris stated June 7. “Some two thirds of Colorado residents have and use a library card, and they will certainly feel the impact at their local library.”
Posted June 17, 2002.
|
